The delivery of electrical energy is typically achieved providing a power grid including one or all of the following elements: electricity generation, electric power transmission, and electricity distribution elements. Electricity may be generated using generating stations, such as a coal fire power plant, a nuclear power plant, etc., and transmitted over transmission lines. The transmission lines may transmit the power long distances, such as across state lines or across international boundaries, until it reaches its wholesale customer, which may be a company that owns a local distribution network. The local distribution network can include substations, feeder circuits, and distribution transformers to deliver power to consumers.
In general, a local power company will manage operation and maintenance of the local distribution network. Therefore, the local power company will manage demand, faults, maintenance, and upgrades related to the local distribution network. However, the management of the local distribution is often inefficient and costly. For example, the local power company can manage demand based on historical usage trends, but will still have to move quickly to obtain and distribute additional electrical power when demand rises due to unforeseen or unexpected events. Further, the local power company may be able to detect global faults and other problems along the main branches of the local distribution network, but still generally relies on consumers and field workers to identify localized outages or issues with the local distribution network.
One proposed solution for monitoring the operational status of one or more portions of a power grid is the use of so-called “smart grid” technologies. To provide a smart grid, it is generally necessary for a power companies to install several additional hardware components at various points of the local distribution network. For example, intelligent meters (sometimes called “smart meters”) are a type of advanced meter that identifies consumption in more detail than conventional meters. Additionally, intelligent or “smart” appliances can also be provided to communicate usage information for individual appliances. These devices are generally configured to communicate usage and other information via some network back to the local utility for monitoring and billing purposes (tele-metering) and for building forecast models for energy consumption.